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To round this out a bit more, now consider creating a bit of a workflow. Google Reader and its place in this flow are mentioned shortly.

A Sharing Workflow

If you’re not sure how to fit sharing into your other social networking tasks and time management for Google+, this section should help. You need to experiment, of course. Results can vary depending on what type of business you run, on whether your buyers have found their way onto Google+ yet, and a whole host of other variables.

A simple workflow might look something like this:

• Read other people’s posts and comment where appropriate (10 minutes).

• Check previous posts of yours and comment back where appropriate. (5–10 minutes).

• Find interesting information inside and outside of Google+ to share with your community (15–20 minutes).

• Share one or two posts (5 minutes).

• Create a unique post (10–30 minutes).

• Comment back and forth on posts (15–20 minutes).

This adds up. Social networking for business takes approximately 2 hours a day. The previous list addresses only Google+. If you add in practices such as blogging, using other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, and other tasks, you can eat up significant time. The challenge is to understand what works and what doesn’t, and tune your use of time so that you work for results and you’re not just churning the waters all the time.

Time-wise, sharing is something that might take you between 15 to 20 minutes tops to get through, after you have a bit of a system. Go to Google Reader, look through topics that would fit with your “magazine,” share one or two posts in the earlier part of the day, and maybe another one or two in the later part of the day.

Quick point to make: There isn’t a specific or magic time to post information because it varies depending on your audience, on whether you’re location-specific, on how people use social networks, and other factors. It’s up to you to measure. Use Google Analytics. Use whatever other tools you have, but definitely measure and decide what you’ll do.

Consider posting information at a few set times throughout the day: early in the morning to hit Europe and the east coast of the United States before people become too busy. Consider posting again around 2 p.m. Eastern time, which is right before lunch on the west coast of the United States. Then you can post around 7 p.m. Eastern time, which is when some folks are home, when the west coast people are getting ready to call it a day at the office, and when some Australians and New Zealanders start getting active. In this way, you can hit your worldwide demographic.

Experiment. You’ll find what works.

Can Sharing Add Direct Business Value?

Depending on your company, sharing can certainly help to add business value. The question some people might need to answer is whether that can be directly tied back to your efforts on Google+. That answer is more difficult when it comes to sharing. It might be traceable when you post something original, and there’s a call-to-action link or phone number embedded in the post. That certainly is measurable.

It’s more difficult to measure whether sharing gives you a direct business value. A lot of actions you take as businesses (and in your lives) aren’t easily measurable, and these change how you are perceived and “sweeten” the deal in your relationships. Sharing falls into this category.

11. Power Plays in Google+

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This chapter discusses some of the best moves for business professionals to build relationships and drive forward some of their interests and efforts. It’s still the early days with this platform, but the goal of this book is to talk about the mindset behind the use of Google+ more than the specific buttons you need to push to access the technology.

Google+ has power plays that can help you get a leg up in these early days. Heck, just being on Google+ means that you’re ahead of the game. This chapter looks at the ideas of people who do interesting projects on Google+. Some of these ideas